Hope Springs Eternal

Sonic Youth’s name is now half-ironic, but the iconic rockers are still putting out material at a healthy clip. Their new album, “The Eternal,” is due in June, and Rolling Stone has a preview of it, along with a headline that makes the usual grand claims: “most diverse record yet from indie-rock vets,” “predictably stellar.”

That may be. We’ll see. But it reminded me of the “Best Album Since ‘Some Girls’ game,” where a veteran rock band soldiers on, making fine (and sometimes less fine) records, only to encounter critics who insist with each release on proclaiming it a return to form. The practice is named for the Rolling Stones’ 1978 classic, but you can play with any artist: Neil Young and “Rust Never Sleeps,” Bob Dylan and “Blood on the Tracks.” Sonic Youth, too? Of course. With Sonic Youth, the acknowledged high-water mark is “Daydream Nation,” from 1988, which is a superb record. No argument. But in recent years, nearly every record has been called the band’s “best record since Daydream Nation”: “Murray Street,” “Sonic Nurse,” and “Rather Ripped,” for starters. Does this minimize the very idea of ongoing artistic vitality by insisting that the point is to return to some earlier moment of glory? That’s my best rhetorical question since “Sonic Youth, too?”

If you have any especially great examples of the “Best Album Since” phenomenon, feel free to comment.

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